1. Field
The present invention relates to a sewing machine, and more particularly to a presser device therefor including presser feet pressing a workpiece cloth.
2. Related Art
Various intermittent presser devices have conventionally been proposed which intermittently presses a workpiece cloth in time with needle drop during sewing. The intermittent presser devices are detachably attached to a lower end of a presser bar. Since the workpiece cloth is reliably pressed thereby to be held by the intermittent presser device during the forming of a needle thread loop, a normal needle thread loop can be formed and accordingly, defective sewing due to skip stitch can be prevented.
One of the conventional intermittent presser devices includes a cloth presser body having a needle clamp abutment and a cloth pressing portion formed integrally with a lower end of the cloth presser body. The cloth presser body is biased by a biasing member in such a direction that the cloth pressing portion serves as a cloth pressing location. When a needlebar is moved upward, a needle clamp abutment is pushed upward by a needle clamp, whereby the cloth pressing portion is raised from the cloth pressing location.
For example, JP-U-S54-113655 discloses a presser device for use with zigzag stitches comprising a zigzag stitch presser foot pressing cloth, a support mounted on a lower end of a presser bar, a cloth presser arm having an end formed with a needle passing through hole, and an actuating lever secured integrally to the cloth presser arm. The actuating lever is pivotally mounted on a connecting pin of the support so as to be swingable. The actuating lever is biased by a spring mounted on the connecting pin in such a direction that a cam member of the actuating lever normally engages a horizontal pin (corresponding to a needle clamp) mounted on the needlebar.
The above-described presser device for zigzag stitches has a problem that the needle clamp collides against the actuating lever every time the needlebar is moved upward, thereby producing a collision noise. Furthermore, there is a problem that the collision noise becomes loud with increase in a sewing speed of the sewing machine.
Additionally, since a connecting pin on which the actuating lever is swingably mounted is located away from a needle location of the needle, the size of the support is increased and accordingly, the length of the actuating lever is also increased. As a result, there is a problem that it is difficult to reduce the size of the presser device.